Our Joint Statement on Woodside from Dockers AGM

7 December 2022

Last night a group of passionate Dockers members including myself attended the Dockers AGM. It was great to stand together as Sarah read out to following statement from the group:

Thank you for your presentation this evening. We would like to acknowledge that we meet here tonight on Whadjuk Noongar land and the traditional owners.

We are a group of passionate Dockers members who are here tonight to reinforce the call for the club not to renew the sponsorship with fossil fuel company Woodside.

Despite claims it is trying to decarbonise, Woodside has doubled down on fossil fuels in the last year to become one of the top ten largest fossil fuel companies in the world.

Woodside has chosen to proceed with the massive new Scarborough gas development, the largest fossil fuel project to be built in Australia in a decade. This is at a time when the UN and the International Energy Agency warn that we cannot build new fossil fuel projects if we want a safe climate and future.

Not to mention the impact on First Nations songlines, lore and culture.

We are so proud of Fremantle players who have clearly demonstrated their commitment to climate action, with key members of the leadership group signing up to The Cooldown and AFL players for Climate Action, as well as their initiative to create a sustainability action plan for the club. And over 5,000 people have signed the Australian Conservation Foundation’s petition backing this call in the past two weeks.

 As members, we are speaking out because we don’t think it is fair for these young men and women to run out with a fossil fuel company’s logo plastered on their jumpers any longer. The Future is Purple – if that is so, why is the club in partnership with a company that will imperil that future.

So, we are here tonight asking the club management, will you please do the right thing by the members, the players and our children and end this association?

Thank you.

The West covered our AGM statement in a weird way, neglecting the fact that it was a group statement but here is some of what they said when first published (interestingly they later  changed to story to make it more fossil fuel friendly but that is another story!).